


The red dress

by pamymex3girl



Series: Doctor who contest drabbles & oneshots [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Episode: s02e13 Doomsday, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 15:31:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pamymex3girl/pseuds/pamymex3girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A long time ago she wore a red dress, that is what he remembers the best. Drabble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The red dress

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the doctor who drabble contest, prompt was then red. Spoilers for doomsday, mentions of 'the empty child' and 'the parting of the ways'

A long time ago she wore a red dress.

It seems strange, somehow, that that is what he remembers, that the image of her walking in wearing that beautiful dress is the first thing that comes to mind when he thinks of Rose Tyler.

(Somehow you’d think that it would be her hanging of that barrage balloon or the way she looks at him as he says his goodbyes, but it isn’t.)

It isn’t about what she’s wearing; it’s about what the moment represents.

It’s _Safe._

(After all in that moment, in that memory, there is no danger, no fall that could end it all, no army of Daleks surrounding them, no fear, no death, just a simple party.)

That is, in the end, why he likes to think of that moment, because she’s _safe._

(Now it doesn’t seem that way anymore, now he’s holding the list in his hands and her name is on it, now he really hates the image of the red cloth against her pale skin, because the contrast makes him imagine other things, things he doesn’t want to imagine.)

What he chooses not to remember is that in that moment, when she walks in and his eyes land on her, a sudden feeling of dread overpowered him. As if somehow, he knew that _something_ was going to go wrong. But nothing went wrong and he forgot about it, forgot until _after,_ when he’s standing on that satellite abandoned, and alone. 

In the months and years that followed he was grateful for that one moment, that memory of peace.

Now he hates it, that image of her, now that he’s standing here with the list in his hands and the ruins of Torchwood one at his feet, now he hates it. He wants to forget it, ban it from his mind, but it won’t go away.

(Now the red he imagines is not cloth but blood, now it is all over, now he will never see her again. For one second he images how it would feel to watch his blood fall on the ruins before him, but he dismisses it, it is not what she would have wanted. )

He dreams of her, wearing that dress, falling out of the sky, but he never catches her.

This is how the story ends and she is no longer safe.

Not even in his dreams.


End file.
